Four subdivisions of the pulvinar have been studied in awake monkeys to determine their contribution to vision and visual behavior. The beta portion of the lateral pulvinar contains a population of cells with saccade-related activity. Such cells discharge with eye movements, even when made spontaneously in the dark. Other cells are visual; most responses to stimulus movement are pan-directional (equal activity to all directions) while a few are directionally-selective (activity for some but not all directions). The mean latency is long and the standard deviation is large; these are also characteristic of its cortical target, area 7. The inferior pulvinar and adjacent alpha division of the lateral pulvinar are similar; both have a concentration of visual cells, with pan-directionality and directional selectivity common. The mean and standard deviation of latencies are different from the beta subdivision. The few cells with saccade-related activity are visually responsive and their eye movement activity is visually mediated. The medial pulvinar is a hybrid of the other pulvinar nuclei. There are functional differences between pulvinar subdivisions which correlate with their cortical target areas.